A Microbial Survey of the International Space Station (ISS)
A microbial survey of the International Space Station (ISS) Jenna M. Lang1, David A. Coil1, Russell Y. Neches1, Wendy E. Brown2,11, Darlene Cavalier2,3,4, Mark Severance2,4, Jarrad T. Hampton-Marcell5,6, Jack A. Gilbert7,8 and Jonathan A. Eisen1,9,10 1 Genome Center, University of California, Davis, CA, United States of America 2 Science Cheerleader, United States of America 3 The Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States of America 4 Scistarter.org, United States of America 5 Biosciences Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, United States of America 6 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States of America 7 Argonne National Laboratory, University of Chicago, Lemont, IL, United States of America 8 Institute for Genomics and Systems Biology, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, United States of America 9 Evolution and Ecology, University of California Davis, CA, United States of America 10 Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, Davis, CA, United States of America 11 Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA, United States of America ABSTRACT Background. Modern advances in sequencing technology have enabled the census of microbial members of many natural ecosystems. Recently, attention is increasingly being paid to the microbial residents of human-made, built ecosystems, both private (homes) and public (subways, office buildings, and hospitals). Here, we report results of the characterization of the microbial ecology of a singular built environment, the International Space Station (ISS). This ISS sampling involved the collection and microbial analysis (via 16S rRNA gene PCR) of 15 surfaces sampled by swabs onboard the ISS.
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